They'll Call Us Heroes, Someday, Maybe
by Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Maedhros insisted he wasn't a coward, he was a hero. Fingon couldn't quite muster the courage to tell him otherwise.


**A/N: I don't own the Silmarillion.**

 **This is the first in a series of alternate character interpretations that I wrote. More will follow soon!**

* * *

Fingon was six years old and visiting his cousins when he first heard stories about the monsters across the sea. He spent all night huddled up in his bed and watching the door with terrified eyes.

There was an uproar of some sort at breakfast - Ada and Uncle Feanor were fighting about something, he was too tired to really catch what - so Maedhros was the first one to notice the shadows under his eyes and come sit beside him. This meant Maedhros was now between him and the door that led down to the yawning maw of the cellar, so Fingon relaxed enough for the whole thing to come spilling out as soon as his older cousin asked.

He was a bit afraid Maedhros would laugh at him, but he didn't. He just talked about how wide the ocean was separating them from the monsters, and how the elves had only gotten across it with the Valar's help.

"And they certainly won't help monsters cross it, will they?" Maedhros asked reasonably.

Fingon shook his head hesitantly.

"So you'll probably never even see a monster," Maedhros concluded. "But even if one did somehow get here, you wouldn't have to worry about it. I'd never let it get you."

Fingon had seen Maedhros practice with his sword, and his older cousin was already impossibly tall and might, he'd overheard, grow even more. Maedhros, he was quite sure, could protect him from just about anything.

Much cheered, he turned to his breakfast, but he made sure to stick close to Maedhros for the next few days.

Just in case.

* * *

When the light of the Trees went dark, Fingon froze.

Later, when someone else managed to get torches going and it was noticed that he, unlike most everyone else, wasn't covered in scrapes and bruises from running around and bumping into things in the dark, he was commended on his bravery and sense.

Fingon smiled and deflected the compliments and got to work doing what needed to be done.

Sense, he told himself firmly. It had been sensible. Everyone said so.

He didn't remember deciding to be sensible, though. He just remembered the choking terror as the illusion of safety was ripped away, and he realized that anything, absolutely anything, could be hiding in the dark.

When they got to Alqualonde, the first thing he saw was the fire.

There was a great mass of fighting on the docks, and Fingon had no idea what was going on - Was Melkor not the only one who had been hiding a monstrous face behind a fair shape? Were their Teleri kin monsters too?

He didn't know. It was hard to know anything in a world lit only by nightmarish flames, but he saw the bright red flags of his cousins, and he could hear Maedhros calling to rally his soldiers, and if Maedhros was in the middle of it, that's where he should be too.

It was like the stories, he told himself. Just charge into glorious battle, and victory and heroism would follow. Maybe that would wash away the memory of terror.

He charged forward. His men followed after him and then -

And then -

His sword was dripping red. His arm was dripping red too. That was probably significant.

All he could really focus on was that he'd just thrown up in an alley mostly ignored by the larger battle, and that it was only the way his hand was braced against the stone wall that was keeping him standing.

And Maedhros was there, holding his hair back from his neck, keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might try to take advantage.

"You're alright," he said soothingly. "It'll be alright."

Fingon stared down at the mess he had made and faced the terrible truth. "I'm a coward."

"You are _not,_ " Maedhros said firmly. "There is no shame in - We're fighting our kin, Fingon. There is no shame in feeling the horror of that."

Yet Maedhros had not been the one to lurch away from the battle to do this.

He couldn't tell Maedhros that, though. He had no interest in trying to convince Maedhros he was wrong. He couldn't bear the thought of someone looking at him and knowing about the terrible choking terror that hadn't left him since the lights went out and knowing him for what he was.

Easier to face a battle than to face that.

He forced himself to pick his sword up from where he'd dropped it like a fool and to push himself away from the wall. "I'm ready," he said hoarsely. "Let's do this."

Maedhros clapped him on the shoulder. "Stay close," he said. "We'll watch each other's backs."

 _You mean you'll watch to make sure I don't start throwing up on the enemy instead of stabbing them,_ Fingon thought, but his relief at the idea was far too great to argue with him.

* * *

The Valar told them to turn back. The Doom they laid was heavy, and with every word, more of Fingon's tentative hope that this would get better was stripped away.

There was no point in going. No hope for victory. Just death and more death, and no way out.

Uncle Feanor gave a rousing speech, and it seemed to ignite everyone else.

Everyone but Uncle Finarfin and some of his people, and Fingon badly wanted to turn to his father and say, "Look, they're leaving, it's not too late, we can turn back too."

But his father came up to him and thanked him for everything he'd been doing to help on the journey with weary, grieving eyes, and all Fingon's courage fled.

"Of course," he said and got back to work.

* * *

Fingon stared across the sea at the distant flames. Beside him, his father said Uncle Feanor's name like a curse. "He's abandoned us."

Abandoned - ?

Everyone else's angry murmurs clicked together in his head.

He had seen the flames and assumed whatever horrors awaited had burned them, but if everyone else thought it was more likely Uncle Feanor had, Fingon couldn't argue with them. It did seem rather in character.

Uncle Feanor had burned the ships.

Shameful relief swept through him. They couldn't possibly cross the ocean now. No one would blame them for not following.

At that moment, he could have happily hugged Uncle Feanor.

"We'll have to cross the Ice," his father said grimly.

His momentary shameful exultation fled and was replaced by sinking dread.

Of course. That was the courageous thing to do. They would cross the Ice.

Fingon flung himself into logistics, into supplies, into mediating disputes, into doing anything, anything at all, that meant he wouldn't have to think.

* * *

The Grinding Ice was a slow slog of constant frozen terror kept manageable only by its monotony.

 _It'll be better when we get there,_ Fingon told himself, told everyone who flagged or wept or looked nearly ready to give in. _It'll be better then._

What he kept to himself was the frantic thought that, _It has to be._

* * *

The sun rose when they arrived, and with it came back some of Fingon's hope. The light had come back. Surely now things really would get better.

Then Ada marched furiously into the Feanorians' camp, and Fingon tagged along, blood tinged memories of Alqualonde playing on constant repeat. It couldn't happen again. Not with such close kin.

Could it?

It was Maglor that came out to meet them, which surprised Fingon a bit, but maybe it shouldn't have. Everyone knew Maglor had a gilded tongue. He was probably a good choice.

Apparently his father disagreed. "Where is Feanor?" he demanded. "I hadn't thought he would hide behind his sons."

Maglor's eyes flashed. "He did not," he agreed. "He never once hid. But the enemy's forces did."

Fingon's eyes went wide as the implication hit. His father actually stumbled back a half-step.

"He's dead?"

"Yes."

Fingon had no idea how long it had been, but even now, it was plain it wasn't easy for Maglor to say.

And suddenly it seemed significant that Feanor's eldest son was also gone. "Where's Maedhros?" he asked, the cold pit of fear that was always in his stomach now growing larger.

"Taken," Maglor said with equal grief. "We sent out patrol after patrol to try to take him back. None of them ever - We had to stop."

There was more to the meeting after that, Fingon knew. There must have been because he knew it ended with shouting and his father stalking off.

He didn't hear much of it, though.

The monsters had taken Maedhros. And if they could take him, then they could take anyone, anyone at all.

* * *

He'd wanted … He didn't know what he'd wanted. Some air. To feel less like he was choking on the anger still boiling in the camp. To forget.

By the time it occurred to him that he'd gone too far, he'd gotten turned around, the sun was going down, and he could hear noises that didn't sound at all friendly coming in behind him.

Run. He had to run. Even if the only direction free to was straight towards the greatest danger of all.

He ran and ran and ran, till his sides were heaving and his breath was coming in sobbing pants.

The sun was coming up by now. The noises were gone. He could turn around. Go back.

Assuming he could find his way free from this nightmare labyrinth of cliffs.

He sang as he walked. It was stupid, he knew, but the distraction of the music was the only thing keeping him from panicking.

He paused to take a breath, and he heard a faint voice singing back in reply.

Another elf! He hurried towards it eagerly. It sounded familiar, almost like -

Maedhros.

He broke into a run.

He nearly wept when he saw his cousin hung up on the cliff. "I'll get you out," he promised. He'd free his cousin and then - well, surely then things would somehow turn out alright.

* * *

He went to see Maedhros in the healers' tent as often as he could. His recovery was swifter than anyone had dared to hope.

"Thank you," Maedhros said abruptly one day. "I know I haven't said it before, and I should have. I wasn't … in my right mind then. Thank you."

On the cliff, he meant. When he'd asked Fingon to kill him.

"Of course you weren't," Fingon said in relief. "No one could have been." Hearing Maedhros say that on the cliff had scared him in a way nothing else had, but this made it better. Of course Maedhros hadn't meant it. "I'm glad you're doing better now."

Maedhros gave him a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, but that would come in time, Fingon was sure.

"You realize this proves me right," Maedhros said.

"About what?"

"What I said at Alqualonde." They both flinched a little at the memory, but Maedhros pressed on. "You're not a coward, Fingon. You never were. You walked up to Angband. Alone. You're a hero."

His cousin's eyes were glowing with pride and faith, and Fingon couldn't admit the truth now. He couldn't.

 _It was an accident. I rescued you by accident, and I'm too afraid to tell you so._

"Fingon the Valiant," Maedhros said with a smile. It reached his eyes this time. "That was the name you used to use when we played as children, wasn't it? It's even more fitting now."

"Fingon the Valiant and Maedhros the Clever," Fingon managed to say. "No monster too great."

Of course, those monsters hadn't been real.

It didn't matter, he told himself. Maedhros was back now. Maedhros was overcoming the worst Morgoth could throw at him. If that wasn't proof they could get through this, what was?

* * *

Everything was terrifying and awful, but it was a pretty consistent level of terrifying and awful with the brief exception of the dragon, so Fingon almost got used to it.

Then nightmarish fire erupted again, and his father wanted to go riding out to the very source.

 _No,_ Fingon tried to tell him. _No, you can't do this to us. You don't get to go riding out to certain death and leave us alone._

Or at least, _If you go, I'm going with you._

But he couldn't argue with his father. Not even now. The Sons of Feanor were not alone in that.

His father did not come back, as Fingon had known he wouldn't, and that meant -

That meant that Fingon was king.

* * *

Maedhros came as soon as he could, and Fingon's first thought was, _Oh, thank goodness, he's come to contest the crown._

Fingon couldn't possibly be in charge of this mess. He couldn't even convince himself they weren't all doomed; how was he supposed to convince everyone else?

Instead, Maedhros swore loyalty. Fingon accepted it glumly.

"I'm so sorry," Maedhros told him later in private. "I remember - When Ada died, it felt like the end of the world."

That was exactly the feeling.

"I didn't know what to do," Maedhros admitted wryly. "It's probably why I got caught." He hesitated.

"If this is your cautious way of leading up to a suggestion of what _I_ should do, I assure you, I'm more than happy to hear it," Fingon said.

"Not yet," Maedhros said. "Not yet. But … maybe soon. I've an idea brewing."

"Good," Fingon said in considerable relief. "You're the clever one, remember. It's your job to come up with these things."

If anyone could get them out of this, Maedhros could.

* * *

Fighting a a concentrated battle against Morgoth was … not Fingon's idea of a reassuring plan, exactly.

"If we unite everyone together, we've got a chance," Maedhros said as he laid out page after page of facts and figures. "And then this could finally be over."

Over. Fingon let himself imagine the bliss of that for one precious moment. No more terror. No more monsters. Over.

Surely he could be brave just this once if it meant a chance of achieving _over._

"Alright," he said. "Let's do it."


End file.
